The ship actually pulled into Ushuaia around 1:00 in the morning. Ushuaia is the world’s southern-most town overlooking the Beagle Channel and the last stop before reaching Antarctica. We found it to be a beautiful town with many brightly colored buildings and shops. We definitely could have used another day to explore the town and sights.
Our day began with a wakeup call for the crack of dawn (5:30) so we could be ready to meet up with a couple friends and be heading to the tenders by 7:00. Because if the size of our ship we could not pull up to a dock which meant to we were required to use a tender to go ashore. Best laid plans don’t always work. We did get up and we ready to go by 7:00. Unfortunately all the tours were allowed off first. Also, the local authorities would only allow us to use their tenders to move from the ship to shore which was slow and very inefficient, especially considering the size of our ship and the number of people who wanted to go ashore. We did not actually make it off the ship until after 9:00.
Thanks to the help of one of our tablemates we were able to get tickets for a tour of the Beagle Channel aboard a catamaran. The Beagle Channel was named after the boat that carried Charles Darwin here in the 1830’s. This was incredible. As we boarded it was sunny and warm. Shortly after leaving the temperature dropped and clouds moved in. Throughout the day we went from sunny and warm to cloudy, cold, and rainy.
Our first stop was Isla de los Lobos. The island was inhabited by huge colonies of sea lions and King cormorants which are sea birds that look like penguins with long necks and wing spans.
Our second stop was the Faro del Fin del Mundo “Les Eclaireures” or the Lighthouse at the End of the World.
The absolute highlight of our tour was a visit to Hammer Island which is populated by a colony of Magellanic Penguins. Among the three of us we probably took a few hundred pictures of penguins.
The last stop was Casa De Te Manacatush, which was farming/fishing outpost. We dropped off half the passengers at this stop and then headed back to Ushuaia.
Once we returned to town we spent an hour or so walking around and exploring. We would have loved to have had more time but we had to catch a tender to be back on the ship by 4:30. Unfortunately there were only a few tenders that held, at most, 120 people, to transport a couple thousand passengers and crew back to the ship. Suffice it to say it was a long process and we were definitely not onboard by 4:30.
After a near perfect day, we returned to the ship exhausted. What could possibly top the day? Glaciers! Around 10:00 pm we began passing a series of glaciers that cannot be adequately described, even through a photograph. One was larger and more beautiful than the next. The following photos were taken between 10:00 and 10:30 pm. We can only imagine how beautiful they would have been in full sunlight.
This is long and hopefully our readers have managed to find this entry interesting enough to reach the end. Tomorrow we will be traveling through the Straights of Magellan.
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